Doctor Who: 10 Reasons The Rings of Akhaten Is The Best Episode Since The 11th Hour

By Matthew Hurd /

2. The Slumbering God

I will always argue that it is impossible to have a truly great hero without a genuinely dangerous villain. The Doctor is pitted against a vast terror of a creature this time around, and the results are fantastic. The glassed-in vampire known as €œGrandfather€™s Alarm Clock€, was a frightening new creature that served as a looming threat for the first half of the episode. Given only the vampire and the Vigil, this would have been a good episode €“ but not a great one. When the ground of Akhaten€™s temple shook, we as the audience shook with it. Again, it is a testament to the strength of the script that the conflict within it steadily and believably escalated, culminating with the Doctor standing face to face with a destroyer of worlds. Thus, the Doctor is called upon to be at his greatest once again €“ to save entire planets from destruction.